


Bad Day At The Office

by shewhoguards



Category: The Chronicles of Chrestomanci - Diana Wynne Jones
Genre: First Meetings, Humor, Pre-Slash, Tea
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-31
Updated: 2019-10-31
Packaged: 2021-01-31 19:56:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21251384
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shewhoguards/pseuds/shewhoguards
Summary: Relaxing enough to spirit travel on your first day is hard. With a co-worker watching it's much much harder.
Relationships: Mordecai Roberts/Flavian Temple
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2019





	Bad Day At The Office

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FairestCat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FairestCat/gifts).

Hell was attempting a spirit trance on your first day at a new job and failing. Mordecai was so conscious of his own heart banging in his ears that he kept on losing the trance before he got anywhere. If he’d been alone he would have cursed up a storm, slammed around the flat for a while and then got the hang of it. However, trying to relax enough to get into a decent trance in front of a brand new coworker, no matter how polite, seemed almost impossible.

“I’m sorry. I can’t find it.” He was jittery, conscious of his own failure. When you’d been ruled from early childhood by those who did not tolerate failing, it became a habit. And this was his first time here, and the Castle had taken him solely on his reputation of being able to spirit travel. If he failed here, then Chrestomanci would have no use for him. If Chrestomanci had no use for him then he would have to report that. His thoughts ran in circles like small frightened animals.

Flavian looked at him, apparently unconcerned that their newest employee might be an abject failure. “Steady,” he said mildly. “We’ll try again.” As though they hadn’t already tried again five times now.

“Right.” Mordecai drew his breath, consciously trying to calm himself. No point even attempting a trance with his thoughts racing like this, he’d never get relaxed enough to leave his body. Breathe out, breathe in, and don’t think of how they’d look at him if he had to go and report being kicked out.

“On second thought...” Flavian, who had been studying him more closely, stood up suddenly and padded to the door.

Mordecai hunched miserably, screwing his eyes tight as he strained to hear what was being reported. If he was truly unlucky Chrestomanci himself would appear to tell him to go.

Instead Flavian returned with a tray containing two cups, and some exquisitely thinly cut sandwiches. Mordecai blinked at them stupidly.

“You look like you’re about to pass out.” Flavian handed him a cup. “I hope you don’t mind but I asked them to make it sweet.” He sounded genuinely concerned about that, as though Mordecai might be offended that he had overruled his tea preferences. “I don’t know what you usually use when you’ve overdone it but that generally works for me.”

Sweet tea tasted horrifying, but would probably stop him shivering like a man with double pneumonia. Mordecai sipped it and tried not to make a face. “Usually I use brandy,” he admitted. “But this works.” He’d probably regret saying that if he had to drink hot sweet tea for the rest of his life as a result.

“I’ll remember,” Flavian said earnestly, because apparently this was a high level government office where they didn’t frown on drinking on the job. That or he was noting it down for the eventual notes on termination. One of the two.

“I _can_ do this.” To his own ears Mordecai sounded like a man trying to convince himself.

“I know,” Flavian agreed as though Mordecai hadn’t spent the last hour trying and failing to find the entrance to Series Seven.

“I’ve done it before.”

“Just drink your tea and take a break and then you can give it another go,” Flavian said reassuringly.

“Right.” Suddenly determined to make a go of it Mordecai raised his cup, intending to gulp the tea and then get on with the job. In theory gulping it would at least have got rid of it more quickly. In practice he was unprepared for quite so much nauseating sweetness. He spluttered, trying at least to swallow it. “Spat hot drink over new co-worker” was not going down on anyone’s list of signs of a good first day.

Flavian obligingly banged him on the back. “I’m sorry,” he said anxiously. “You really hate the tea, don’t you?”

“I don’t-- I just--” Mordecai started to stumble through an excuse and then looked at Flavian’s worried expression. Something about it -- Flavian being worried he didn’t like the tea, Mordecai being worried Flavian would know he didn’t like the tea -- was suddenly awful enough to be ridiculous. He started to laugh shakily. It was probably the low blood sugar. “I’m sorry,” he agreed. “That’s just.. really awful tea.”

“We can do better tea!” Flavian smiled back tentatively, apparently encouraged by the laughter. “At least, I think we can do better tea.” He looked at the cups and bit his lip. “I should probably just have asked for the teapot.” Giving it up as a bad job he pushed the plate of sandwiches towards Mordecai. “Ignore the tea,” he said firmly. “Food should help.”

They were wonderful sandwiches, if you were serving a tea party. However, bread cut paper-thin with the tiniest sliver of cucumber inside was not the kind of food that anyone could describe as substantial. Mordecai did his best to act like somebody who wasn’t thinking about stuffing the entire sandwich in his mouth in one go. Once started though it was difficult to hold back the laughter and filling it with food as quickly as possible seemed the safest way to prevent it.

“Oh.” Flavian looked dismayed as he realised how tiny the sandwiches looked once picked up. “Oh dear.”

He looked so sincerely distressed that Mordecai found himself forgetting his own anxiety and looking for ways to reassure him. “They’re very..” He searched for a helpful word. “..dainty?” he offered after a moment.

“Do you think so?” And Flavian brightened so visibly at the slight praise that Mordecai grinned back, suddenly warming to him a little more. It was very difficult to be scared of judgement by someone so visibly crushed that he might have offered you the wrong sandwiches. “I should have been more specific about what we needed really, but I didn’t expect these. It’s not what you’d think of if you went for sandwiches at home.”

“It must be intended for entertaining guests?” Mordecai suggested.

“Most likely. They get a lot of guests here.” Flavian sighed. “It’s only my second week,” he admitted. “I’m sorry. I do seem to be getting a lot of things wrong.”

“Oh!” And that put a different light on things. “I thought you were here to supervise me,” Mordecai admitted, “I uh--” He gestured at what had seemed a fairly formal uniform, particularly the high stiff collar. “You seemed like the sort of person who fit here.”

Flavian went pink. “_Thank_ you,” he said fervently, because apparently that was the highest of compliments. “I am trying. But no, I think they just thought they would put the new people together.”

It made sense. At least that way when they screwed up they wouldn’t be sabotaging any actually important work. However, Mordecai’s nerves suddenly didn’t seem quite so bad. It might have had something to do with Flavian smiling at him in that shy, pleased way rather than frowning at him in apparent judgement.

Out of habit he picked up his cup, meaning to drain it. Then he looked at the luke-warm contents, thought better of it, and put it back. “Shall we try again?” he suggested.

Obligingly Flavian picked up his notes, ready to go through what they should be doing one more time. “You look a little less like you might fold up on the floor now,” he said, sounding relieved. “Though I’m not sure it’s due to anything I gave you to eat. It would be awful if I had to tell them I’d broken you on your first day.”

Mordecai, who had his own reasons for thinking it would be awful, nodded fervently.

“I say, though,” Flavian added tentatively. “I really do know you can do it - your records were very impressive! I just thought, maybe the background noises here were maybe different and putting you off?”

As the room was as silent as a grave this seemed unlikely. Mordecai was just fishing for a polite lie which didn’t involve Flavian being too terrifyingly formal for him to be able to focus when Flavian added, “I was just thinking-- music? I heard there’s a young lady at the Castle who plays the harp very well..”

Music? Now there was a thought. Flavian might not have had the greatest of luck getting what they actually needed from the Castle, but it was worth a try, surely?

Later on, even when it turned out that Flavian’s tastes in music were painfully similar to his tastes in tea -- horribly saccharine and cloying -- it was still worth it. The noise at least took his mind off his heartbeat long enough to get him out of his body. Besides, Mordecai decided later, he would have borne a lot worse just to earn that same delighted smile when Flavian thought he had helped.

He wasn’t used to people trying to help him. He thought maybe it might be something he’d like to get used to. Particularly if it involved Flavian. Maybe even if it involved horrible tea. Even then, it might be worth it.


End file.
